Harmoney arrears increase

A $1.9 million increase in Harmoney’s loan arrears over January is likely partly attributable to seasonal factors, the peer-to-peer lender says.

Monday, February 22nd 2016, 2:23PM

The platform recorded $16 million of new lending in the month, with half of it in the highest-ranked A and B loan categories.

Borrowers are ranked from A through to F according to the level of risk they represent.

While a large chunk of January’s lending went to lower-risk borrowers, Mathis said by number they were only about a third of lending and the lender had not changed its borrower targets.

It recorded an increase in arrears of almost $2 million in January, which took loans in arrears from 4% to 4.7% of the loan book.

That represents 1.1% of the opening loan book missing repayments in January. Arrears in the A grade book doubled for the month from $633,000 to $1.23 million.

Harmoney recently announced it has facilitated more than $200 million in loans since its launch 18 months ago.

Harmoney general manager Monica Mathis said the prrcentage of written-off loans was static.

“You do get some seasonality in arrears - especially around Christmas - but you begin to see a stabilisation in February and March. But the numbers are still within forecast.”

She said there was a minor deterioration in A-grade loans month-on-month but it was important to take into account the volume growth of the portfolio.

Mathis said sometimes money was received from a borrower even after their loan was written off.

“Typical accounts at 120 days in arrears are reviewed for write-off and will be written off if there have been no payments and there is no arrangement from the borrower and the likelihood that the account will repair.

“In some occasions a loan won’t be written off at 120 if their situation changes. Pre-120s we may write off if we receive notice of bankruptcy. Once a loan is written off accounts are passed to one of two specialist debt recovery agencies and in some cases, we receive monies after write off.”

Mathis said money had been borrowed from Harmoney for a number of reasons, including buying racehorses and getting breast augmentation in Thailand.
“We have had fathers who wanted to go and watch their daughter who was representing NZ in the Football Ferns in Canada. There is a huge variety.”

Tags: Harmoney Peer to Peer Lending